Major Complications of Implants Retaining Removable Prostheses - Case Reports and Proposal of a Novel Attachment Concept

Abstract Removable restorations on implants and natural abutments constitute a viable treatment option with telescopic crowns often used as attachments. In two cases, catastrophic failures occurred, both being attributable to mechanical overloading. In the first patient, an implant fracture occurred under a removable cantilever prosthesis while in the second patient an implant was lost which had been retrofitted with a locator attachment to support a preexisting prosthesis. A novel attachment system, incorporating a flexible element in the male component is introduced which compensates for fabrication inaccuracies and non-parallelism of supporting implants, which might have acted as stressbreaker thereby preventing implant overload. Keywords: Implant fracture; Loss of osseointegration; Locator